Everything You Need To Know About ‘The Vampire Diaries’ Season 8

With Elena still in a magical coma, Stefan and Enzo on a killing spree in California, and some horrible, humanity sucking new baddie on the loose, Season 8 of The Vampire Diaries has its work cut out for it.

Here’s everything we know about Season 8 of TVD so far:

Kat Graham and Ian Somerhalder Are (Probably) Leaving After This Season

Rumors have been flying that TVD is coming to a close after this upcoming season, but Ian Somerhalder took to Twitter to clarify that that’s not necessarily the case:

Hey all, so… Last weekend I talked to an audience at a Q&A about the end of and how excited I was to make

— Ian Somerhalder (@iansomerhalder)

Hey all, so… Last weekend I talked to an audience at a Q&A about the end of #TVD and how excited I was to make what I believe – my last year – be as great as possible. Somehow in my infinite wisdom and end-of-season foggy brain, I managed to make it sound like the show was coming to an end. Cut-to the press running stories that the show would be done after Season 8. Thing is, the people who actually make that decision (the CW and WB) haven’t made it yet! So let’s take things one step at a time: Season 7 wrap, vacation, lots of sleep, let the writers get started on Season 8, and then we’ll all see where we go from there. Until then, much love 😉Love,Ian

A photo posted by iansomerhalder (@iansomerhalder) on Feb 19, 2016 at 5:40pm PST

Producer Julie Plec said that she’s happy with the road Season 7 went down, and is willing to keep following it as long as the Salvatore brothers are there:

“I finally realized that my destiny on this show, creatively, is tied in to Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley. And I mean that in a really good way. As long as those boys who I now consider my friends want to keep telling the story, then I won’t walk away from telling the story.”

The Salvatores / TVD / CW

Unfortunately, it seems like Somerhalder is leaning toward moving away. The Stefan Diaries just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?

Either way, Kat Graham (Bonnie Bennet) told UsWeekly that

“Season eight will be my last season. But you know what? Another season is a whole other year, and we’re going to blow it out.”

After Elena’s sudden return at the end of Season 7 via voiceover, TVLine asked producer Julie Plec if that meant that Dobrev would be down for more episodes next season. Apparently, Plec and Dobrev agreed that she would always return for the series finale of the The Vampire Diaries, so we know we’re good for at least one more dose of Dobrev:

“It’s what she and I kind of agreed on when she decided to move on, and it’s what I’ve got in my head. Obviously things can change throughout time, if the show goes on longer than we expect it to, or if we all collectively decide it would be fun to bring her back earlier, and she wanted to.”

Of course, when she does come back, will it be as or as ?

This New Nameless Baddie Is Going To Be CGI-mazing

TVD New Monster / CW

Brian Young, the writer behind the Season 7 finale “Gods and Monsters” sat down with TV Guide to talk a little bit about the new, soul sucking monster that’s taken the humanity out of Damon and Enzo. We got a tiny peek when we saw some gnarly claws grab Enzo’s face, but apparently there’s a whole lot more where that came from:

“We’ve never really seen a CGI creature in The Vampire Diaries before. We’ve done a lot of iterations of a lot of different kinds of villains, so we wanted to do something a little different and see how it plays out.”

Enzo Attacked / TVD / CW

There’s Still Hope For Steroline

Stefan and Caroline / TVD / CW

Whether or not you were completely sold on the Steroline romance, the writers seem to be pretty confidant that these two are finally going to make it work. Young told TV Guide:

We had a lot of discussions in the writers’ room about where Stefan and Caroline end up, and we thought there was a really tragic and sweet symmetry in, ‘Stefan is with Valerie and Caroline is with Alaric.’ And both Valerie and Alaric, over the course of their relationship with these two people, realize that they may love us, but we are not their true love. … And at the end of the day, at least for now, [Stefan and Caroline] really are meant for each other, even though Caroline has built this life and built this family with Alaric. He’s not her true love right now.”

Matt Definitely Will Come Back To Mystic Falls, We Just Don’t Know When

Matt Donovan / TVD / CW

Matt Donovan (Zach Roerig) finally hightailed it out of Mystic Falls in the Season 7 finale, which was probably a good idea since he had become all anti-vampires and hated anything supernatural. But Brian Young assures us that we haven’t seen the last of Zach Roerig:

“Matt’s going to take some time. It was rough for him. … He’s the only human character left. And as the show becomes more supernatural, the journey we wanted to tell with him was his feeling like he doesn’t necessarily belong anymore. If and when he comes back in Season 8 — he’ll be back eventually in Season 8 — we’ll have to see what form that takes and what journey he’s gone on and how that’s changed him.”